Over the summer and on longer holiday breaks, I have the kids choose a day to make dinner. They need to plan it out (main dish and sides) and make a shopping list for me. Then, on the chosen day, they make their recipe with whatever level of assistance is needed from me.
This is my way of helping them build confidence in kitchen skills for the day when they graduate and move out (which isn’t long for Dude).
Recently, Spud (8th grade) asked to make pancakes for his meal. I gave him the recipe and then he told me that he wanted to do pancake art with his pancakes.
Have I mentioned that Spud is an amazing artist? He takes after Hubs in that regard - he is truly talented.
So I did some research and found that pancake art works best with boxed pancake mix from the store, with extra water added to make a thin, crepe-like batter. Then it’s cooked over very low heat on the electric skillet to give the artist time to create and to keep the colors intact instead of browning.
Spud is very much a middle school boy and super into sports and slightly obsessed with basketball, especially Michael Jordan. So he decided to make Michael Jordan and NBA pancake art.
You guys. I was blown away! He was his own worst critic of course (he was overly picky about the designs and disappointed with the taste), but I thought it was amazing. He created everything freehand, after loading the food dyed pancake mix into my royal icing bottles.
A word of warning, though pancake art is beautiful, it's not the best tasting. The high level of food dye, the thin batter, and low cooking temp result in a slightly off tasting, rubbery pancake…but they look cool, so that’s all that matters, right?
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